What are the Reasons for a SQL Diff tool showing differences for 2 identical stored procs on 2 different db servers

Question

Utilising a number of different SQL "diff/comparison" tools I am getting differences reported for stored procedures and tables which are identical (in everything but the case of certain keywords - bear with me (the expectation is for the case to be the same)) between a database living on 2 different database servers.

The "client" db admin tools and the comparison tools I am usgin, have been both configured to try and capitalise keywords and also not capitalise keywords in order to provide consistency.

I have also ran the same script to create the sprocs on both db servers. The mySQL database servers hosting the databases involved in the comparison are both the same version;version 5.1

What mySQL server configuration settings do I need to concern myself with, so that I can run comparisons and NOT see differences flagged where they don't actually exist...

The intention here is that I get an accurate report of differences and can then confidently generate database scripts including/excluding changes during promotion, sort of what you'd expect from using a SQL diff tool!!

Thanks,

Answer 1

In my experience, when two schemas were declared different, although I expected them to be exact, was due to

• slight difference in the MySQL version, so white space and capitalization in the table definitions ( CREATE TABLE s) were different
• different default charsets (at the server, db or table level) on the different servers
• different ordering of indexes on a table (due to me dropping and re-adding it on one of the servers)

++

• The AUTO_INCREMENT value in the CREATE TABLE

Answer 2

If your two servers are not both the same OS, it is possible that there is a difference in newline characters

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newline